Colombian Cuisine

I love trying new foods... and I have to admit, that´s one of the most fun parts about visiting another country. Colombian food is super economical-- I think we averaged about $3-5 USD per meal when we were eating out toward the end of the trip, including something to drink. It probably helped that the Colombian peso is currently $3000 to every $1 USD. You can buy a pineapple or a bottle of water for less than 50 cents.

Here are some of the flavors we found in Colombia. I think I'll let the pictures and their captions do the talking.... And we'll start out with primarily just what we ate while we were at Crisalinco, on the base.
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This is a typical breakfast... sweet, pear-like pumarosas
  (Trena calls them "water apples" here in the DR), caldo, which is a brothy soup
with a piece of beef rib cooked in it, and arepas, which are
round tortilla-like bread (thicker) made from corn flour. These
were unsalted... in my opinion? The cheesy ones are best, like behind Rod's bowl in the pic below!

This bears a side note: The caldo is a normal breakfast food, but if you don't have soup for breakfast? You will likely have it for lunch or dinner. Our host, Helman, informed us that Colombians usually eat soup every day. We had several very delicious kinds of soups while we were there-- one with pasta, a crema of squash, and one that was like a potato soup (or a sancocho, if you're familiar with the Dominican delicacy).

Or if you were our buddy Rod, you may have tried their version of mondongo, a soup made from tripe!

I don't have a good picture of the juice drinks, but oh my. If you look at the juice behind Rod's soup, you can see its brilliant color. They make FANTASTIC juices in Colombia, which can be mixed with either milk (think a very natural-tasting milkshake) or just drunk as juice. Best part is... most places don't add sugar, or very little if any. Mmm.

A typical dinner: Scrambled eggs, rice, and boiled plantain.

Rice, beet-and-egg salad (quite tasty, actually... and ooohhh the color!)
with roasted mature plantain.

Another breakfast. Eggs, bread, and papaya.

This one reminded me loads of the DR-- beans and rice, monedas (coins) of plantain,
and salad. The beverage pictured is aguapanela, or water prepared with the raw
cane sugar that's a staple, pictured here:

This was one of my favorite meals because of the laughter that went with it as the US Americans attempted to eat fish that still had their heads and fins attached. My Colombian and Salvadoran friends inform me that the head and fins are the best part. I'm still not convinced. The fish was tasty, though!

This is tinto, what Colombians call black coffee, often with aguapanela added.
Like the Dominicans, they often serve coffee in plastic cups, but I thought this
non-disposable cup-holder was a fantastic idea for saving burned fingers.
Also, they had a coffee percolator Peggy dubbed "the magic coffee pot"-- which I don't
have a picture of. It had 3 spouts: One for coffee, one for hot water, and my favorite: one for hot milk.

Masato, a fermented (non-alcoholic) drink made from corn flour and cinnamon

This is arequipe, basically a caramelly spread like dulce de leche.
Colombians like to spread it on obleas, big round wafer crackers that
taste like wafer cookies or ice cream cones. You make a sandwich, and it's delicious.

An unusual but tasty dessert: mature plantains baked down with
crusty cheese on top. You can serve it with ice cream!

I was delighted to discover that Dominican Skim Ice
popsicles are present in Colombia as Bon Ice. So awesome!

Every country has a slightly different take on the empanada. This one
had a soft-ish crust and was full of ground meat and potatoes.

Fruit salad, Colombian style: Contains mango, papaya, and pineapple.
And yogurt. And corn flakes. And prunes. And shredded mozzarella. And ice cream.
With cookies and a strawberry on top!

Crusty breakfast cheesy bread with a yummy cafe con leche.

I swear I'm going to try to make this one at home sometime...
Strawberries and apples cut in pieces, with mint leaves, a little
jam of some kind, and hot water poured over the top. SO GOOD.
This one's called an aromática.

We got the chance to eat at a vegetarian restaurant in San Jose. (An unusual occurrence, our guide informed us: that region is known for being carnivorous.) Tasty, healthy, and fun... well, for the wannabe vegetarians among us. :) Rice with beans and other veggies, salad, broccoli with a tomato-based sauce, and guava sauce (like apple sauce... just not) with puffed millet for dessert. Mmm...

This salad gets to go here, too... broccoli, kiwi, mixed veg, cucumbers, and greens... REALLY yummy.

And sometimes you get to eat watermelon and spit the seeds from the balcony.

Last night in San Jose, we got pizza. Hawaiian is a surprisingly
popular flavor in Colombia! Everything from pastries to pizza
comes with ham and pineapple. They serve it on these individual
cardboard plates, and as you can see, this pizza was huge.
But they don't really do it like we do in the US, either-- we order
lots, eat lots, and don't mind taking it home. They're a lot more
conservative... this place didn't have pizza boxes, but foil "slice bags."

So there you have it: Food in Colombia is pretty good. At the very least, if you starve, it will be your own fault. :)


Credit where credit's due: Most of the photos in this post were taken by my teammates, particularly Rod and Peggy Stewart and Tammy Springer. They were doing such an awesome job, I decided not to try taking yet another expensive piece of electronics through some of the crazy zones were were passing through.